Love bridges Falklands divide

Phoebe and Sebastian think the Argentinians were wrong to invade

The UK and Argentine governments may be further than ever from reaching a definitive solution to the Falkland Islands/Malvinas dispute, but one couple living on the islands is giving them a lesson in peaceful co-existence.

They are the Socodo-Reids, Argentine Sebastian, aged 27, and Falkland Islander Phoebe, who is 28.

Sebastian comes from Claypole, an area of Buenos Aires, and she was born in the Falklands but lived in Argentina from a young age. After getting married in Buenos Aires, the couple moved to settle down in the islands.

Sebastian is one of the 20 Argentines who are fully integrated into the 3,000-strong community of the archipelago.

"We met in secondary school, in Buenos Aires. We went out among friends, although we were in different years," Phoebe tells the BBC at their home in Port Stanley, the Falklands capital.

The couple went out for a year, and got married in 1999 after she became pregnant.

As a couple, we attracted attention in Argentina, but it was never a problem Phoebe

At the time, and it is still the case now, memories of the war were still fresh.

"As a couple, we attracted attention in Argentina, but it was never a problem. We would talk about the islands when someone asked us what they were like, but we never spoke about the war.

"In any case, I didn't remember what they were like because I left when I was very small," Phoebe says.

"Here in Malvinas there aren't many marriages like ours, half from here and from there. It is different, yes, but I don't remember encountering any sarcasm from anyone on the islands. They all are very nice", says Sebastian.

The couple have two small children: Nicole, nine, who was born in Argentina, and three-year-old Joshua, born in the Falklands.

The couple have made their home in Stanley, the islands' capital

Sebastian and Phoebe had different perceptions of the islands when they first settled down here six years ago.

For him, the Falklands were completely unknown; for her, they were only partly known.

"When I first came to Port Stanley I asked myself 'What is this place?'," Sebastian remembers.

"It seemed like such a small place compared with Buenos Aires and, on top of it all, it was extremely cold, something I wasn't used to. However, I got used to the place after a while."

Phoebe liked the islands immediately: "I love tranquillity. Despite everything that has happened, it is a very peaceful place," she says.

Argentine or British?

Sebastian has been working for Port Stanley council and is also a volunteer fireman. Phoebe is a housewife.

In both Argentina and the Falklands, there is no shortage of awkward questions about who the archipelago should belong to.

On that matter, Sebastian and Phoebe agree.

In my opinion, the conflict didn't make any sense, it was ridiculous Sebastian

"As far as I know, they are British. A lot of people don't like my saying that, but this place is not like any place in Argentina," says Sebastian.

"They are not even called Malvinas. They are the Falklands," says Sebastian.

"Perhaps we might argue that geographically-speaking they are Argentine, but the reality is different."

The unity this couple shows is down to the fact they both reject the 1982 war.

"In my opinion, the conflict didn't make any sense, it was ridiculous. It was down to decisions made by the Argentine government of the time, which sent so many people to be killed," Sebastian says.

"The soldiers didn't really know where they were going, nor did they have the necessary equipment".

Twenty-five years after the Falklands War, marriages like this one show an alternative solution to a problem which most feel detached from and which seems to be more of a tug of war between governments.

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Argentina marks Falkland invasion

This is the BBC News article:

Argentina has begun a series of events to mark 25 years since its 1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands, known by Argentines as Las Malvinas.

A memorial ceremony is taking place in the southern city of Ushuaia, with other services due for Buenos Aires.

Ahead of the anniversary, Argentina has criticised the UK for refusing to discuss the sovereignty of the islands.

More than 900 people died in the 74-day war, including 255 British servicemen, 655 Argentines and three islanders.

A UK military task force sailed for the Falklands in April 1982, and troops began a campaign to regain the islands by the end of the month.

Several major land and sea battles followed before the British eventually broke Argentine resistance, recapturing control of Stanley, the islands' capital, on 14 June.

Vigils

Most in Argentina now regard the invasion, ordered by the country's ruling military dictatorship, as a mistake, says the BBC's Daniel Schweimler in Buenos Aires.

The public holiday is an opportunity to remember the dead but also to reiterate the country's claim to the islands, he adds.

Argentina continues to claim sovereignty over the islands, which it has done since 1833.

A formal commemoration service is being held in Ushuaia, the closest mainland city to the islands.

Vice-President Daniel Scioli and Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana are leading the ceremony. President Nestor Kirchner is not attending.

Three hundred veterans of the conflict have gathered in the central square to mark the anniversary.

In Buenos Aires, dignitaries will attend a tree-planting ceremony, and vigils for fallen soldiers will be held around the country.

In London, former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who sent troops to recapture the islands, will hold a private memorial ceremony in St Paul's Cathedral on Monday evening.

'Arrogance'

The build-up to the anniversary has been marked by tensions between Argentina and the UK.

In a statement released on Sunday, UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett expressed "continuing regret" over the lives lost on both sides.

But her Argentine counterpart, Jorge Taiana, criticised British refusals to discuss the sovereignty of the islands.

Plans to commemorate the start of war in London smacked of triumphalism, he added.

"What they are doing is not a commemoration but a military parade, a typical display of arrogance."

Last week Argentina unilaterally scrapped an oil and gas exploration treaty with the UK.

Día del Veterano de Guerra y los Caídos en las Islas Malvinas

Today is Malvinas Day: a public holiday here. Also a special one since it is 25 years since Argentina went into Las Malvinas (Falklands) and effectively started the Falklands War. This is a very sensitive subject here still. For Argentines there is no question that Las Malvinas are part of Argentina and thus it is also taught so at school. By all means don't call it the Falkland Islands. If you do you are in for some heated words. It's comparable to the Palestinian - Israeli conflict in the sense that you cannot have a normal debate about it. You always end in an argument. There is no neutral middle ground. Want to read more about this specific day 25 years ago read here. If you want to read about the war in general read here. What is not so commonly known is that there was talk about using a nuclear device on Buenos Aires if necessary at that time. There would have been nothing standing here.

Argentina pushes diplomacy in new Falklands bid

Monday is Malvinas Day here so i'm not surprised. Will write about it then. Has an interesting side to it.

"Twenty-five years after hostilities ceased, Argentina is opening a new front in the Falklands War.

Rather than jets and mortar rounds, however, this salvo involves diplomats appealing for help at the United Nations and the government reasserting long-standing claims to the island chain, where far more sheep than people huddle against the forbidding South Atlantic winds.

London, however, maintains its hold on the island, which Argentina invaded 25 years ago this Monday.

Many Argentines -- especially the left-wing power base of President Nestor Kirchner -- see the war as a huge mistake pursued by the nation's discredited military dictators.

But Argentines still universally call the Falklands -- known in South America as the "Malvinas" -- as their own. And in this election year, Kirchner appears poised to gain support by pushing hard against Britain's firm refusal to negotiate on the islands' fate.

"Argentina has never consented to the United Kingdom's claim of rights to the territory," Eduardo Airaldi, Kirchner's top official in charge of the South Atlantic region, said as he described Kirchner's position in an interview with The Associated Press.

Kirchner's predecessors didn't do as much to press Argentina's claims to the islands. Former President Carlos Menem restored diplomatic ties with Britain in 1990 after agreeing to shelve the sovereignty question.

In contrast, Kirchner declared the archipelago's recovery to be "a permanent and irrevocable objective of the Argentine people." His government expressed irritation when Britain protested the presence of an Argentine ship near the islands and challenged changes to fishing rights made by Falklands administrators.

In January, he sent his foreign minister to lobby U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to support new sovereignty talks.

Argentina on Tuesday said it scrapped a deal Menem had signed with the British to explore for oil and natural gas around the Falklands. The joint venture yielded no major discoveries, but was long on symbolism, since it represented an Argentine acknowledgment of British rights to the sea floor. Britain's Foreign Office called the end of the deal a "regrettable action" that "will not in any way help Argentina in its claim for sovereignty of the Islands."

Just before the Argentine invasion on April 2, 1982, diplomats from both countries had been talking about an eventual Hong Kong-like handover of the colony Britain had occupied since 1833, despite the idea's unpopularity in London and among the 3,000 or so British-descended residents of the island, known as "kelpers."

But the invasion changed all that.

"We will not discuss sovereignty unless and until the Islanders so wish. At present they do not," a British Foreign Office spokeswoman told the AP on condition of anonymity in line with department policy. "In this respect, 1982 changed everything."

Britain reacted quickly to the invasion, summoning the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship to carry 3,000 troops and mobilizing an armada that included Prince Andrew to sail some 8,000 miles south.

British artillery pounded the Argentine draftees who had dug foxholes in the rocky soil. Humbled by the onslaught, the South American nation surrendered that June 14, after 649 Argentine and 272 British troops were killed.

The two countries share a long history -- the British helped build Argentina's railroads and promoted its beef industry. A large British community still lives in Argentina, served by an English-language daily paper in the capital.

But the Falklands dispute remains an open wound. Many public schools, streets, small businesses and taxi stands are proudly named for the Malvinas. Billboards that read "The Malvinas are ours" are a common sight.

Kirchner has sought to avoid offending either the left or the right in Argentina by focusing on the idea that Britain acted illegally when it expelled an Argentine military garrison from the islands in 1833, a nationalist tone that analysts say won't hurt him this election year.

So Argentines were outraged recently when British Prime Minister Tony Blair compared the British retaking of the islands to the Kosovo air war that led to the overthrow of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.

"I have got no doubt it was the right thing to do," Blair said in a podcast on his Web site. "But for reasons not simply to do with British sovereignty but also because I think there was a principle at stake which is that a land shouldn't be annexed in that way."

Many Argentines initially supported the war as well, but came to blame the ruling military junta for picking a fight the country had little hope of winning, and sending conscripts to their deaths.

The greatest legacy of the 74-day war for Argentines is that the defeat hastened the fall of the dictatorship a year later in 1983, said Riordan Roett, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University."

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